Exploring the Skribit

I’ve recently added a handy dandy widgit called skribit. This lets you post suggestions on the dashboard on the right over there and looks like a pretty cool idea. It should be easy and intuitive to use, just write in a suggestion. Let me know if it isn’t easy to use.

I love creating as part of community, so I would love to hear what you want to know – be it how’s America, what do you miss about Australia or what are your views on Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (which can be surmised by saying watch Douglas Wolk’s Ignite Portland Talk).

Over time I’m going to write my lurking ideas for blog posts in the suggestions box as well. You can then support posts you’re keen to see written and say please noooooooooo.

Cracked Leather on The Pedestal

Cracked Leather, a flash fiction piece I wrote during my first week at Clarion, has just been published at The Pedestal Magazine. I am delighted to be included. Go to go to, and, if you have time in this hectic festive season, I would love to know what you think.

To anyone who wandered over here from The Pedestal website. Hello and welcome, make yourself at home. Let me know if you have any questions, thoughts, or if you would like a cool refreshing beverage.

If you would like to discuss Cracked Leather in the comments section please feel free to do so (there may be spoilers).

Clarion Blogs and Journals page has been updated

As part of its monthly maintenance program The Clarion Blogs Collection has grown. This month Philip Brewer, Pamela Rentz, Wendy A. Shaffer and Neile Graham have been added. Currently the collection is sorted chronologically, by when I stumbled across the blog.

Things Read and Reading

What a joy it is to read, and how important as a writer. It is joyful to read different texts and see how they fuel the creative process. Cosmicomics has inspired a short story. Love in the Time of Cholera reminds me how fluid time, language and can be reminiscence. I always think about Marquez’s writing as non-linear and yet in some ways it is quite linear; my mind darts like a fish between the then and now, a collage of memory. I’m afraid Jonathan Livingston Seagull reminded me of what I don’t like in beast fables and what I especially don’t like in spiritual teaching stories – but even there there was benefit. Jonathan Livingston Seagull reminded me of the down to earth fables and teaching stories from China and Japan I loved and read as a child.

Continue reading »

Mid-December Roundup – Thanksgiving, shows, publishing, audio

Well Thanksgiving was a blast, and my strange fears totally unfounded. We attended two vegetarian thanksgivings with delightful company at both. A Thanksgiving that included a small child talking about how Earth is the best planet and Venus is the worst planet (because Venus will crush you with its enormous gravity) gave me strong hopes for the new generation. I highly recommend at least renting a child of this type for all such occasions.

’tis the season of festivities and events. Lee and Annaliese Moyer (our lovely hosts who kindly keep us in their basement) have both just had shows open. Lee is showing at the Radio Room and last night we went to the opening of Elementum, which is showcasing Annaliese’s photography. Mike took photos of her art with his iPhone, I love how you can see the reflection of happy viewers in the glass

Annaliese's Gallery Show - Mermaids and Observers

Annaliese's Gallery Show - Photographer and Mermaid

In other delightful news Cracked Leather be published in The Pedestal Magazine on 21 December. Cracked Leather was the first story I wrote at Clarion Writers Workshop, I wrote it during Holly Black’s tutelage and it was critiqued under the care of Larissa Lai.

Love and Spandex, a comic I created with Ben Hutchings, has just come out in Tango – Love and War, the ongoing romance comics anthology by Cardigan Comics. This edition shared it’s launch with The Tango Collection launch, which has been published by Allen and Unwin. It’s a fantastic recognition of the hard work Cargdigan Comics have done over the years bringing together diverse, independent Australian comics. I heard the launch was fabulous and would expect nothing less.

And finally, if you would like to hear my dulcet (or not so dulcet) tones you have two options! The Comics Spot back in Melbourne have been putting up podcasts of shows. It’s jolly good all round and you can hear my pre-departure interview, chat, with the crew – talking about grants, writing, America and why Portland and many other things.

You can also hear a small snippet of me describing the Hawaiian shirt I was wearing at the Jay Lake recording during Orycon. The snippet is in Banter 2, but you should really check out the other recordings as a source of delight. Mary Robinette and her stalwart crew did a fantastic job reading stories by Jay Lake (different fab writers doing the voices of different characters and Mary Robinette as the narrator). I am astounded by the sound quality of the recording given the terrible acoustics of the space. I imagine that is a big bravo to Robert Kowal, sound guy, for doing such a splendiforous job.

I hope you all have a happy and safe festive season and a joyous 2010.

The strange melancholy of elsewhere

or Christmas where it’s cold.

Living the USA has been wonderful, but it also shows to me what I love and what I miss about my home country.

A few months ago, heck a few weeks ago I was excited about our first truly cold Christmas. A Christmas with the promise of snow, a Christmas where Christmas food is entirely sensible and does not accompany sunburn and going to the beach afterwards.

Continue reading »

The diversity and depth of stories that inspire and shape is growing

It is so wonderful how social media, like facebook, like twitter, like livejournal, wordpress, flicker and youtube help us create our narratives. We experience things we value and we are able to share them so easily. A few clicks and we have sent a sleep walking dog, or a music video or a call to action to people in our communities. These virtual communities made up of people we see in real life, kith, kin, acquaintances and people we have only ever met through our practices on the internet.

Continue reading »

They Might Be Giants -> they might just inspire me

They Might Be Giants were in Portland last week – one of my favorite bands. I remember when I was a shy geek girl trying to buy music with gift certificates I would look for They Might Be Giants, Sinead O’Connor… and… and then I would look around blankly. Seeing them in person at the Crystal Ballroom was joyous. I felt tears forming in my eyes as I realised it was THEM, this wasn’t a video, we were really here, they were really here and it still felt impossible. I’m so used to tour dates belonging to a different continent, I’m not used to the access we have to different bands now that we live in the United States.

Seeing They Might Be Giants inspires me as a writer.

Continue reading »

World Fantasy Con 09

Hello all. Life has been a bit crazy the past few months. I’ve just finished a whole bunch of educational comics work, comics about staying out of jail, community sector careers and drugs (mostly alcohol and cigarettes). I’ve just come back from World Fantasy Con, which was magnificent.

Cat Sparks captured many fine moments at WFC, and through the power of google I found a Flickr group dedicated to WFC09.

Right now I’m in an interesting liminal space, exploring new opportunities and deciding what gets priority. I probably won’t have any more educational comics work until next year, which means I am free to explore… and free to eat ramen. It is exciting none the less, there are a few opportunities to chase that excite me, there are short stories to edit and actually send to publishers, novels to explore and creative things as yet unthought of. There is also slush to read and books I promised to judge.

Life is full, yet open, I feel blessed by the people around me and 2 weeks ago I got to be a mermaid. I’m sorry to be so tedious and happy, I shall try to have something juicy and horrible happen (but not too horrible). I injure myself with enough frequency that I am sure something will come up and I shall remember to chronicle it (I fell up the stairs three times in the last month in a splat owie flat on my face kind of way).

Book Overview, Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight

I am trying to write more book summaries, overviews of non-fiction I read. To help me engage more deeply with the text as I go over it so I can write about it and help me remember who said what should I need to refer back to things. Hopefully it will be a useful resource for other folks as well.

Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight was a lovely, well balanced read with a lot of love for the art, the craft and the practicalities of story making. It looks at processes in detail and combines theoretical concepts with practical exercises (20 exercises all up).

A rough outline of the jewels contained within:

Continue reading »